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Sam has really grown up since I left. He's a man now. I wish I could've been there for him.

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she's a wolf. she's a stray mutt. she's a goddess. she digs up your turnips. she is literally The Sun. she likes boobs. she is herself reincarnated. she is judging you. she ate your lunch. she is blessing you. she is howling. she is feeding your cat. she is shredding demons. she is taking a nap. she sprouts flowers in her wake. she will smack you with a tree. she wields the elements with a paintbrush. she glows. she's a menace. she fished the moon out of a lake. she revitalized your crops. she's headbutting you. she's feeding the birds. she's beautiful and she is fresh out of retirement

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Just to check we are in agreement that the ritual went wrong because Solas stabbed Varric and not because Rook dropped a statue on him right?? We all saw that everything was "fine" until he did that right???? That the dagger was made to bond with ancient elven blood so it went haywire with Varric's and that's why the tear exploded right??????? We did notice that every time the fade opened in this game was because of the dagger getting in contact with blood RIGHT??

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It's kind of sad when people (you know what kind) feel like they'd be "fine" with sacrificing Davrin if not for Assan dying when Davrin's whole narrative is about learning that he matters even if he isn't a sacrificial pawn for some greater good. It's heartbreaking actually.

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God reading Veilguard articles is difficult. I found one about how it stacked up against other top sellers of the year on Steam, and I noticed the article getting slowly more and more vitriolic until I was suddenly smacked with “The game’s director, a man pretending to be a woman going by the name Corinne Busche” and it’s just like. Oh. Cool. I can’t trust anything this article says and I’ve wasted ten minutes of my life

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the gender my parents know about and my much cooler gender my online friends know about

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I hate writing first drafts because I know they have to suck but I just want them to be good the first time which sends me down a rabbit hole of not being able to write anything for weeks

FUCK

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Note: added rats to the video game

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If your business is healthcare and you end up with more people dead than alive, because you purposely turned them away so you could take in more profits, then you have completely failed on a human level. Not to mention your entire business is in complete contradiction with its supposed purpose. You say you're in the buissnes of healing but all we see is death and greed.

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also tumblr is That Cunt and it’s scientifically proven by the fact it’s the universally agreed go-to place for thousands of ao3 users whenever ao3 is down. like people don’t go to instagram or tiktok or facebook or twitter or x or whatever to see if ao3 is down. tumblr is like ao3’s friendly next-door neighbor and we go to tumblr whenever ao3 is in distress. other social media platforms could never gain our trust and alliance

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Shout out to all the Black ppl that can no longer participate directly in the fandom they love because of the stresses of racism 👍🏾 you contain multitudes of value and I'm sorry that the color of your skin and the power of your voice makes people not want to acknowledge that.

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the joy of realizing someone is a similar type of freak as you

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Turn the switch OFF?

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“read goethe to understand romantic gothicism,” they said.

bro, i don’t need to read it. i AM it. i cry over sunsets, i’ve fallen in love with a stranger from across the room, and i, too, would dramatically duel someone over a vague philosophical disagreement.

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Why Dragon Age Veilguard isn't a "Cathedral"

Concept art by Matt Rhodes

"To disinherit the storylines of past games goes directly against the notion of building cathedrals."

What is inherent with Veilguard that keeps bothering me is the fact that the world's choices truly didn't matter--and it doesn't simply bother me from a player perspective, it's not simply a grievance borne of frustration to what I (as a longtime fan) have lost. It's about the very culture of the arts under capitalism's new media habituation cycle [x][x].

Yes, I spent hours of my life playing and replaying each instalment of Dragon Age. Yes, I painstakingly curated a 'canon' world state by replaying what came before in preparation for Veilguard. Yes, I am even more unsatisfied with the end product--time hasn't helped, it's just widened the divide. But, and I can't stress this enough, these very personal gripes aren't what hit home the most. It's the inherent disregard of legacy. A legacy that the previous writers and game developers were building towards.

In the DAV artbook, "cathedral" is the word used to describe the process of making a game. Matt Rhodes' exact words are: "One artist can make a painting, but it takes a team to build a cathedral." Cathedrals took centuries to build. The architect who drafted the first blueprints would likely never see his work realised, he had to rely on those who came after him, like-minded and passionate, to see it through--for the culture, for the future, for legacy. Painters took on several apprentices for this reason too--giant frescoes were not completed by one man's hand, even if it is one man's name that immortalises them. Similarly, if you weave a narrative around choice, what good does it do to take it away at the final act if not to fall to caricature?

To disinherit the storylines of past games goes directly against the notion of building cathedrals.

Late-stage capitalism and profit-margin-obsessed game producers forcing developers to churn out meager content, to make a known brand into something it's not, to chase a fad or a popular trend... o, how reductive and cliche you've been forced to become Bioware. We have lost the cultural thought patterns relative to Cathedrals. We know only of barn-raised churches--done in a day but unlikely to last the turn of the seasons.

And don't even get me started on the music of Veilguard either. From Origins to World of Warcraft to Everquest to Baldur's Gate to Dungeon Siege, you can hear the intricate interconnected weave of sounds inspired by the Dungeons and Dragons-esque fantasy genre. You hear it in the repeated use of certain instruments, in the harmonic weeping notes of a bard-like singer or the foreboding echoes of drums as if of war. In tavern songs. But then, rather than hire someone who loves these worlds and this genre, who is a hungry artist looking to make a name, a legacy if you will, for themselves with a spectacular score, you hire any already sated composer, one well-into the encroaching years of career fatigue, whose notes repeat in countless projects, who feels less concise and more uninterested with each new project. One who has long since cemented his legacy. Someone in it for a paycheck and nothing else! And, to top it off, you let him compose something so minimalist? I am offended actually.

Cathedrals! We should have witnessed the final tile being placed on the Dragon Age cathedral. Instead, some architects walked up, tore down the interior and installed IKEA furniture and called it authentic before having to call the previous architects to come and fix the "load-bearing issues", forcing them to rush and add a coat of varnish and a few 'aged' details for authenticity.

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BLANKSWORD, our Roguelike RPG where you can customize your own brain and play as an Angel fighting against a tyrannical God, is considering turning to crowdfunding!

We'd like to get an idea of our reach - please share & relay this post if you would like to see us on Kickstarter :] 💖